The loss of the high elevation whitebark and limber pines creates a very serious problem for retaining winter snowpacks, which feed water supplies for 40 million of people, industries, agriculture and critters across the West.

Invasive species are species not "native" to a habitat that basically come in and take over an area -- like the whitebark pine beetle decimating trees in Yellowstone, or pythons literally eating alligators in the Florida Everglades.

Though a full endangered species listing would have, of course, been preferred, the Fish & Wildlife Service’s landmark finding of whitebark pine as a “candidate species” i.e., a candidate for the endangered species list when funding is available means the U.S. Forest Service, on whose land the majority of whitebark pine stands are located, will automatically designate whitebark pine as a “sensitive species,” which requires the agency to take special management actions for whitebark.

This “warranted but precluded” finding for whitebark pine by the Fish and Wildlife Service should send a loud and clear message to those still arguing that the earth is flat and the sun orbits around the earth -- I mean those still arguing that climate change is not real.

In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, for example, a pioneering study undertaken by NRDC, the U.S. Forest Service, and a few other Whitebark Warriors in 2009 found that over 80% of whitebark pine forests in the Greater Yellowstone had experienced moderate to high mortality with another 15% in earlier stages of beetle infestation.